Hey! Err… nothing much to say :X LOL
End-of-term is coming hooray!!
Thanks to Hollee my amazing beta :D -luv you!-
And JK owns the people!
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"Hey, Potty! Heard you're hallucinating more often, is it the after-effects of killing your boyfriend?"
Oh. That. Voice.
That was the last thing Harry Potter needed right now, to hear the bloody idiot's unintelligent taunting. Having come back from one of the worst summers of his life, in which every day he had dreamed about the passing of Cedric Diggory and the other minor detail about the rising of a Dark Lord that had once left him an orphan; he was tired.
That the whole wizarding world thought he was delusional (oh, some thought he was a murderer too) didn't really help. Nor did the fact that his stupid, sort-of-half-cousin just wouldn't STOP TALKING.
"Malfoy just bloody shut the hell up!" he said, angered, wanting to jump at the other boy's throat. Of course, said boy's goon squad prevented him from doing so.
"Just let it go, Harry, he's not worth getting detention for" Hermione said, giving her friend's arm a squeeze.
"Listen to the mudblood, Potter, I can give you detention as I see fit" he said, arching a thin eyebrow and straightening his prefect crest. "I see the golden boy lost his badge to the weasel, quite degrading there, aren't we?"
Ron became nearly as red as his hair and shared Harry's desire to murder the Slytherin prince and feed him to the giant squid.
"Ok, come on!" The bushy haired girl interrupted again, pulling both her friends now, it was stupid to even be having this sort of conversation. For Merlin's sake they were all fifteen right now, it was time to start acting it!
They did follow her, even if the stupid comments were still being made behind their backs.
"Hermione, what'd you do that for?" the red headed Weasley asked, tidying up his collar. "We could have given him detention, y' know?"
The witch fought the urge to roll her eyes as they headed to the dungeons, oh yey, potions first thing in the morning.
"Oh, don't you guys ever get tired of this? I mean, it's not as if we don't have enough going on already" she looked around to make sure no one was listening "what with The Order, your trial and now that Umbridge woman. We have to stop fighting about little things all the time," she sighed, "Everything is changing… I told you at the feast yesterday, the Ministry is going to interfere in Hogwarts, we have to focus on the more important things." She said in that rational tone of hers.
Harry shrugged, he knew she was right, but it didn't change his feelings towards any of the things mentioned.
In the summer, Harry and his parents always stayed a week at his most hated (and in fact, only) relatives' house because of an inconvenient blood protection that had to be renewed every year; it was really not something he looked forward too. Especially when, in this specific summer, he had a bit of a Dementor problem and ended up in court because of it, almost losing his wand. 'Runs in the family' Sirius had said humorously after he had been cleared, but it was obvious that both he and Remus had been very disturbed by the whole incident. They knew very well what it was like to face a trial wherein everyone wanted to find you guilty though you weren't.
On top of that, there were the lies printed about him almost every day: people hadn't believed him when he told them that Voldemort was back, in fact he was still not being taken seriously and it was awful. Dumbledore suffered deeply for it too, since he was backing the boy up in everything Harry chose to say, the Boy-Who-Lived suddenly admired the man even more.
He knew that the school wouldn't be all peace and quiet, after all, Malfoy attended. But he hadn't foreseen that a very nasty piece of work - oh one should hear Remus talking about her - that went by the name of Dolores Umbridge, was now the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. He had no idea what was going to take place that year, but he knew one thing: it wasn't gonna be a very good one.
Right he was…
For starters, the Umbridge woman was a nightmare dressed in pink. Everything she did and everything she said was to put Harry down and credit the lies being spread about him. And if it was bad enough having her as a teacher, when she started gaining power: that's when the problems were blown out of proportion.
She wasn't the only one though; the Potions' Master still gave him hell as much as he could, as did the recently-made prefect of Slytherin.
Speaking o f whom, said blonde boy was right now on the floor right on top Harry, both panting heavily and looking straight into each other's eyes.
One could really mistake the situation for something else were the boys not completely covered in some really disgusting and unidentified goo.
See, Malfoy had thought it'd be especially amusing if the Gryffindor Boy-Who-Lived became a moldy-green mess of slime before the fifth years' double potions started. Of course he hadn't expected to be pulled onto the mess as said boy slipped and fell down.
That was pretty much the sight Severus Snape, the potions' master and resident spy, - as Harry had learned this summer - found as he entered the classroom.
See, Snape wasn't really a people's person, nor was he much of a morning person, even less when he woke up with a huge headache as the one he had at the moment, and as side effect there was the minor detail of his murdering tendencies. Yeah, one could say that Draco had picked the wrong day to mess with the greasy haired wizard.
The circle of people around both boys cleared in a heartbeat as the teacher's presence was noticed, and everyone sat down as though not a thing was happening.
The man could feel his vein pumping around his temple, banging continuously on his head like he was getting hit by a quidditch bat. And now this undignified sight of two completely idiotic children rolling around covered in a substance that looked as though it would feel comfortable in a swamp, made him want to crawl back to his chambers… or hex both boys to oblivion.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, making a point to speak each word with as much venom as he could.
"It was Malfoy, sir!" Hermione said at once, turning to the man.
"I believe I was not talking to you" he said, glaring daggers at the girl. Now, why would someone dare confront him in a day like this? "Five points for speaking out of time, now step aside" the man ordered; his attention back to the boys that now stood up.
"Hey, that's not fair! It was Malfoy who started all of this!" the Boy-Who-Live defended; wanting to, somehow, be taken seriously though covered in green slime.
"You were the one in my way, Potter" the blond accused, though not even bothering to hide his smirk. He knew this whole thing would result in the Golden Boy losing points for his precious house, and earning a few detentions.
"You threw it on me, you stupid git!" Harry corrected angrily, fighting the urge to just push Malfoy back into the mess.
"Language, Mr. Potter! Ten points and now silence, both of you! I don't want to hear another word" the potions' master said, towering over them. "Twenty points from Gryffindor for all this mess! Now, I do not know nor do I care the reason of your insignificant quarrelling, however if you think it's amusing to turn my classroom into a swamp..." he drifted looking around.
To say Snape was overreacting was a bit of an understatement, it wasn't like he couldn't just flick his wand and be done with it. Of course, Harry didn't dare point that out, he'd lost enough points already without even doing anything! Sure it was unfair he lost the house points when it was all Malfoy's fault, but when was Snape ever fair?
"And since it is clear you cannot decide who's fault it is, then I'm sure you'll have no problem with both of you serving detention, together" he stated, arching his eyebrow as if daring them to complain about his verdict. "Filch will be glad to have both of you all week, at seven. Starting Monday."
See, this was why one should not anger Severus Snape when said man had a headache, it'd take you to your doom before you knew it.
Draco couldn't even hide his shocked face and it was almost worth getting detention for, Harry reckoned, grinning mentally.
"But... but sir... why me too?" he finally managed to ask, not believing his head of house would do that to him.
Snape turned sharply to him, his eyes straitening, the blonde's whine reached that little nerve on his head that made everything hurt.
"I wonder why you think I have to explain myself to a student!" he said. His. Head. Hurt. "Make it two weeks then, now sit down this second if you do not wish to spend the whole month with our care taker" he ordered, while scourgifying the room without much effort.
Harry wanted to scream and punch somebody; he even considered doing it as he walked back to his seat. It was unbelievable! How in the name of Merlin had he gotten two weeks' worth of detentions and 30 points off his house just for getting out of bed that morning?
"Sodding idiot" he murmured darkly as he took his seat, sending a dark look at the blonde.
Malfoy had to, on top of making all the mess in the first place, make it all worse! Why did he go and say something?! Now they were stuck for two weeks! As in fourteen whole days! As in half an entire twelfth of his year! Oh that was so great, as if the old toad wasn't already making his life hell.
--
"Can you believe it?! And he didn't even take points off of him!" Ron was saying, after telling the tale of that day's potions' mishap to his mates in Gryffindor. All were wondering what had happened for them to, all of a sudden, lose thirty-five house points.
"Well, I for one feel sorry for you, mate" Dean said, cutting through the silence as he looked at Harry and sat down on one of the couches.
"Yeah, I mean, house points are easy to get back. Especially with the teachers pitying us because of that Umbridge, but you... well, you're stuck with Malfoy for two weeks." Neville joined in, shaking his head.
Someone gasped and said hurriedly, "Oh! What about quidditch practice?!" that was, of course, Angelina.
Harry ran a hand through his hair and shrugged "...I don't know, Merlin, why did he choose this time for his stupid detentions?" he muttered darkly. "Well, unless you are ok with training without me... we'll have to change the time" he said, shrugging again.
"We can't train without our seeker" the captain said matter-of-factly.
"We can't change the time either..." said Katie Bell "we made this schedule based on all of our tests and free time, it was the only option left remember? We still have DA."
"Oh, great! Now what are we going to do?" Angelina asked, standing up angrily. She was annoyed. Harry had missed a couple of practices already because of Umbridge's detentions. Not only that, but the boy had nearly been suspended at the first match along with Fred and George, who were now replaced by nearly useless beaters.
"I can practice by myself; I'm seeker so it's less of a problem. Ron can fill me in on the strategies and stuff. It'll work out, alright?" he reasoned, in reality trying to put this subject aside already. He had enough on his mind...
Angelina sighed, it wasn't like she had a choice, no one could replace Harry.
"Fine... but Harry, I swear if you don't practice..."
"You can feed me one of the Skiving Snackboxes, just the bad ends of it, ok?" he said, trying to smile a bit.
Having been convinced, the quidditch captain announced she had, oh the joy, Defence Against the Dark Arts and had to go, the seventh years' schedule was all messed up.
The rest of them went to lunch, though Harry went to the dorm to owl his parents before eating.
--
The brown aristocratic owl kept furiously tapping at his window and so he finally got up to let the bloody bird come in before it woke up his dorm mates.
"...sendin' zis hour..." he muttered half-asleep, annoyed at being awaked.
The bird was oblivious to his state and just offered the parchment on his leg to the boy before flying away without another second's wait.
With eyes half-closed he dragged himself back to bed and closed the curtains around him and, with the same accuracy as when awake, he cast a silencing charm and a protection one too. He knew who had sent this letter - after all, not many people had the habit of owling at three in the morning -and he knew he'd have to give it his full attention.
He shook his head a bit and tried to become at least a tad more conscious before breaking his family crest seal and opening the envelope. Surely enough the letter inside was written in a flawless calligraphy and he sighed, what did his father need now? Very few words were written on the parchment, but Draco Malfoy would soon learn that they meant a lot to him.
Draco,
You will be requested home this weekend by me and once here you shall get that one present we both have been wishing for. Prepare yourself and do not speak of it to anyone. Destroy this letter when you are done reading it.
Lucius
A quick, straight forward and formal message, as expected from the Malfoy's patriarch. One might find it confusing, but not the man's son, oh no. Draco knew exactly what his father was talking about and he could barely contain his joy.
Oh, finally! Finally! He would once and for all be able to join his father and Master in their cause!
Draco was a very obedient son; he was one of those who aspired completely to become the image of his father when older. He idolized Lucius more than anyone else, and since said man had Lord Voldemort as a master, the young wizard wanted nothing more than to serve him too.
He was proud of his lineage and his name, but it was not easy being a Malfoy though, no matter what any outsider thought. You had standards to live up to, some set so high you had to trade your soul in order to reach it. No less than the best grades, Owls in every subject, mastering of the Dark Arts and the most complex spells, was expected. And not a word of encouragement or of congratulation was ever heard. Never was it enough, doing your best and excelling was merely an obligation and no rewards were ever gotten because of it.
None the less, Draco was willing, sometime it became hard and it hurt, but he knew this up-bring just made him stronger and power was something he starved for. And though sometimes he just wanted to yell back at Lucius and demand attention or a 'Well done' instead of a 'Why did you get 98 and not a 100?' he wanted to make the man proud. He wanted to, somehow, do something, anything, so amazing that even the Dark Lord would praise him and then his father would have to do the same.
Smiling widely and feeling the happiest he had been for a long time he burned the letter and place his wand back under his pillow. The incidents of that morning's potion class were forgotten, he was going home later that day and that was all that mattered.
For some reason he didn't manage to sleep anymore that night, the chance to prove himself was coming.
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A.N:
So, finally Draco and plot are here, yey! :D
I hope my Draco - which I think is fairly different from canon one - will please you guys, though he didn't really show himself this chapter, hopefully I'll make him more...consistent from now on.
-I am changing the time line a bit, if anyone knows the year 5 time line, they will notice it, but that's a silly detail -laughs-
-Harry was not suspended from Quidditch like in canon, for reasons you'll see later :D
Answer to Reviews:
Miss-Janine:
Hahah, I had loads of fun making him like that D About the whole
dad-dad stuff, that's actually on purpose (sort of) cause I see loads
of people making the character that have two fathers call them
differently, like one "dad" and the other "father"
or "papa" or whatever else, I think I'd call them both dad
was it me. And so I guess, in real life it gets confusing -laughs- so
I wanna make it seem like that, though I hope it isn't that
confusing nhaaim
Thanks! :)
niferell: There you go! You're welcome :D
Illyra: Thank you :) Oh, I understand, I hate peter too (I mean, who doesn't?) buuuuut I hadn't planned to put the scene in this story, one of the reasons being as you said: it'd be two emotional things in the same chapter, and the chapter would be really big :XX plus, the whole him-getting-away scene is pretty much like the canon one and so I'd find myself sort of 'copying' loads of parts :XX so I left it out :XX sorry!! Hope it's ok though! :)
LittleHero: I know right? I felt sorry for him too :P errr check my answer to Illyra about the peter thing :P sorry hihih :P Here you go!
Ok! That's it people! Please Review :X reviews make me happy!! :D
See ya next time!
